Several chatbots mentioned on this site have been implemented using the Media Semantics character animation engine. It is now easier than ever to get started with this technology with the Character Hosting service. The service lets you configure a custom character-based application online and then insert it into your website. Character Hosting now has a free level that is ideal for experimentation.

Media Semantics and Pandorabots.com have teamed up to offer a connection to the new Pandorabots.com AI-as-a-Service within Character Hosting. You can see step-by-step instructions at the MediaSemantics.com site. Click “support” in the black nav bar, then “KB123”.

The full URL to the article is: http://www.mediasemantics.com/KB/KB123.htm

I will do my best to field questions about this service and related technologies.

Is there a fee for TTS streams?

1.) I would love a good character animation suite that can take input text and use TTS to make a character appear to talk, but too expensive and seems to require loading onto a server.

From the site:

“The optional Character Server is used whenever characters need to speak dynamic text, such as text from a database or a dynamic web page. The Server is normally used in conjunction with Microsoft Windows Server running IIS or Apache web server software, and server-based text-to-speech.” Character Server $2950

2.) Output is a flash swf, and that is not readilly viewable on Apple ipad/iphone/ipod- so sad.

3.) You do have some really nice NeoSpeech voices!

-cb

$2950?!?! Wow! Goo luck with that but that’s way out of my price range.

Both Flash and HTML5 are supported across the Character Builder, Character Server, and Character Hosting product suite, so bots on iOS, Android, etc. are not a problem.

The product I was describing above is Character Hosting. This is a cloud-based service. There is no software to install - you just configure apps on a control panel, then get an embed code for your site. It is priced per-stream, with either a free level or a monthly subscription level of $9.95, $19.95, or $39.95, depending on the number of streams.

The $2,950 price you saw on our site is for the Character Server. Basically it is the engine behind Character Hosting. You can install it on your own server, along with a TTS engine, to produce unlimited streams, even resell the streams as part of your own service. So it’s really for the developer that needs full control over all aspects of their solution.

$39.95 for 15K streams a month plus $220 for each extra 100K is still way out of my price league unfortunately but I wish you well with it.